Always believe in Carlton Cole (eventually)

Meet the new striker - same as the old striker! West Ham have finally signed Carlton Cole on a three-month deal having beaten off stiff competition from, erm, West Ham, while Carlton got fit. It certainly increases our options up front and is good news for everyone except Modibo Maiga. We now prefer either no strikers or a player who's been out of contract to our £4 million signing.

No goals without Cole?

So Carlton Cole is out with ligament trouble until January at least. A blow although at least it's not the rest of the season as the Sun claimed. We'll miss his hold-up play badly, but thankfully Franco is starting to look a decent striker and with Hines he will hopefully trouble defences.

Beyond that though we're down to the untried Nouble, although I'd like to see Diamanti told to stay in the last third of the pitch and do some damage. We're also said to be after 32-year-old Italian international Toni, although knowing us that might be a translation error and we're actually after Joe's mate Big Tone, a regular in Ken's Cafe...

Carlton talks balls

Carlton Cole has got his kit off for the lasses, being named 'Cosmopolitan/Joop! Thrill Centrefold of the Year' after posing for Cosmo's Naked Centrefold special alongside 20 other men to raise awareness of male cancer for the Everyman campaign. Check out the video on Cosmo's website http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/men/cosmo-naked-centrefold-video-carlton-cole/video
and hear him mentioning "testicles" with a hint of embarrassment... Well done CC, surely the hunkiest striker we've had since Iain Dowie.

Striker light

Carlton Cole's out for six weeks after his England groin strain, which effectively means the rest of the season. As we have no alternative target man, Carlton's injury is a disaster for the Hammers. The only hope is that Dyer suddenly starts to play regularly, Freddie puts on two stone and Tristan rediscovers his YouTube form. Or maybe we could play Boa Morte up front as at least he's strong and gets stuck in. He confuses us, so imagine the effect he'll have on John Terry.

We're already missing Behrami and Collison, with Di Michele and Kovac failing to convince in recent games. Suspect we'll be helping a lot of teams stay up in our final eight games... we could help to save Sunderland, Stoke and Boro while boosting the European hopes of Chelsea, Spurs, Villa, Liverpool and Everton. So there's a lot to play for.

Maybe Zola needs to become tougher too. He's said Cole was not fully fit for the England game but he did not want to deny him the chance to play for his country. Can you imagine Ferguson doing that?

Thinking about it, there was the time Tommy Taylor and then Alvin Martin played up front for the Hammers. James Collins as centre-forward anyone?